


Daughters

by soinspiredbyyou



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:41:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28048635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soinspiredbyyou/pseuds/soinspiredbyyou
Summary: This fic is actually the first writing I ever fiddled with, even before Where You Lead. Aside from a few minor edits in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been sitting on it for... almost three years? it’s unbetaed, so errors are my own.
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	Daughters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Soloh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soloh/gifts).



> This fic is actually the first writing I ever fiddled with, even before Where You Lead. Aside from a few minor edits in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been sitting on it for... almost three years? it’s unbetaed, so errors are my own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Girls become lovers, who turn into mothers. 
> 
> -John Mayer
> 
> This work is unbetaed, so any errors are my own.

She took great care to make her footsteps quick, light, and silent, her cloak billowing behind her. The nuns wouldn’t notice one more hooded figure lurking around L'Hôpital. But she knew Madame Fraser, even in a delirious state, to be more than observant. Much like herself. And due to their complex history, the woman would recognize her easily.

She had been the obvious choice for the errand, in any case. The Comte would have no way to pass through the doorway undetected, nor an explanation for his presence if he was caught. Of course, he was also ignorant of the _true_ reasoning that she had suggested this plan. He desired revenge against Claire for reasons purely related to business. The situation was much deeper, more _personal_ than that for her.

It almost gave her pause to see Claire collapsed on the bed and numb with pain. Almost. But she had suffered enough to ease the woman’s hardships, had she not?

Slipping the vial out of her robe, she placed it with nearby tools and other herbs ready for use. She carried the whole tray to the bedside, where Claire was surrounded by nearly the entire staff of the hospital, then opened the freshly concocted ointment and drew her finger across the slick surface.

“Thank you, sister,” one of the nuns muttered as she passed, the former not even glancing in her direction as she devoted her attention to working on the _apparently_ beloved patient in front of her.

She smiled saccharinely in return. At the last moment, she stroked Claire’s cheek carefully under the cover of her billowing sleeve before turning in a whirl of fabric and sweeping out the door and down the stone corridor.

Claire’s dazed eyes had wandered over her face, unseeing. The resignation behind them betrayed what she knew to be true. Her child wouldn’t survive, and she didn’t expect to make it through herself.

She ran home along the back streets of Paris as night fell. It wouldn’t be long now.

________________________________________

More than 24 hours later, she snuck back into the darkened halls of L'Hôpital des Anges. The corridors were silent barring a tremendous, ongoing wail echoing from the chamber she had visited not long ago. She knew the despair behind Claire’s cries. She had felt the same way herself, once. But she had moved on, just as the other woman would have to. She had quickly refocused on her greater aspirations after her life changed in Scotland. And nothing – _nothing_ would stand in her way this time.

She crept into the darkened room and spotted a box so devastatingly small it could have but one purpose. She withdrew the hammer from under her cloak and pried the nails out of the lid, one by one. Sweeping her palm below the surface, she could already feel the warmth returning to the infant’s fragile flesh. The poor wee thing. Still and stone cold for hours as its mother wept over its body.

It was a simple concoction, of course. If Claire had been in her right mind and operating at full capacity, she herself would have recognized the nightshade extract swept across her clammy skin, incapacitating mother and babe long enough for the nuns to reach an inevitable conclusion.

As soon as the Comte had informed her of Fraser’s arrest and Claire’s compromised condition, she had leapt into action. If money and clans wouldn’t be enough to enliven the Jacobite uprising, she had the next phase of the plan in her hands. A child from the Fraser line.

“ _Faith_ ” had been delicately carved into the wee box she had broken. She settled a sandbag in the center of it and forced the nails back into the wood. No one would be the wiser as to its contents as they carried the box out to the cemetery in the morning.

Melisande Robicheaux tucked the wean into her cape before it could rouse and make a sound to alert anyone. With the future of Scotland under her arm, she crept through the alleyways of Paris once again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Tumblr: @mo-nighean-rouge  
> Twitter: @clairebearchamp


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